Single Guy’s Kitchen

This is really one of my “go to meals.” It’s quick, cheap, and very easy to make. It’s made from things I typically keep around the house. It can be adapted for vegetarians and non-vegetarians if need be too. I probably fix beans and rice at least once every two weeks. It keeps very well and is great as left overs the next day. For all these reasons, I consider it one of the ultimate bachelor meals.

Ingredients

• 2 cans black beans
• 1/2 half sweet onion (vidalia if its in season) - diced
• 1/2 green bell pepper - diced
• 2-3 cloves garlic - diced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Various spices (seasoned salt, paprika, red pepper, black pepper)
• cooked brown rice (I use the boil in the bag variety)

The recipe works like this: (1) soften your garlic/vegetables in oil (2) add your black beans (3) simmer/reduce/thicken (4) serve over rice. Pretty simple, right? Like most things, you can vary this greatly based on the vegetables you use. Celery is great in this as are jalapeños. For the lazier bachelor, a bag of frozen mixed veggies would probably be fine.

Heat your oil in a 10″ non-stick skillet. I don’t use much oil here, I estimated about a tablespoon but really just enough to coat the pan and the vegetables. Next add your garlic and set your heat to medium low. I let this go for two to three minutes or just until the garlic starts to get some color. Next add the onions and do the same thing, give it one or two minutes. Finally add the peppers and once again give it a minute or two. Make sure you mix things together well in the pan on a regular basis while doing this. Really all you are doing here is softening the vegetables and removing that overly raw flavor and texture.

Once your veggies are looking good, add your two cans of black beans and mix. You’ll want to drain your beans, but just do it roughly as you want to reserve some of the seasoned packing juice (probably a couple tablespoons). If your beans are the no salt variety or not packed in a seasoned liquid then you may want to increase the amount of oil you use. The goal is wet mixture that the rice can absorb.

With the beans and the canning juice in the pan, go ahead and add your spices and stir things up. I go heavy on the spices here. Remember you’ll be mixing this with plain rice so the spice you add to the beans has to flavor the rice too. With everything mixed together, turn your heat back up to medium and let the slightly soupy mixture start to bubble. Once you see the first few bubbles pop on the surface, cut your heat back to simmer and let the mixture thicken and reduce. Stir it occasionally while you do this. I let mine cook like this for about 15 minutes or so, just enough time to fix my rice!

So there you have it, just serve your beans over the brown rice. This is relatively healthy, vegetarian (if that matters), high in fiber/protein, and probably most important, cheap. I enjoy mine with chips and salsa. My girlfriend likes to add salsa to her’s and then eat it with chips. I prefer to keep things separate.

Like I said earlier, this makes great leftovers. The portions I specified in this recipe is good for at least three, probably four meals for me. I just add the beans to the remaining rice and keep it in the fridge. You can heat it up in a pan or in the microwave. It can taste even better as leftovers too. Sitting the refrigerator gives the flavors more time to blend together.

For a meaty version, I like to add chorizo, andouille, or some other type of spicy sausage. Ground beef, turkey, pork, etc also work very well. Chicken livers would be an interested addition too, dirty rice and beans!

A dish like this can be a main course or a side. You can customize it anyway you like. It’s cheap and easy so have fun with it, try different variations.